I have to disagree. I have worked as a librarian for 10 years, including a couple at the Minnesota Historical Society, which is the newspaper archive for Minnesota. Although the American Newspaper project, and microfilm in general have many positive features (as I mentioned in my original post) the wholesale destruction of newspaper originals that Baker mourned is absolutely true- as is the fact that many of the newspapers and books destroyed were in readable condition. To this list, it would be akin to copying a 78 onto a CD with a high loss rate, then throwing out the 78 because it is "brittle."
If you want some real answers about newspaper preservation, the last place you should look for guidance is in the work of a hack fiction writer like Baker. Check out the work that's been done by the United States Newspaper Program. If you are good at research and check out Baker's "extensive" bibliography, you will find yourself wondering why he left out significant information simply because what others said did not support his crackpot argument. Baker is in microfilm denial and seems to think that one page that will not break when folded somehow magically represents millions of pages of newspapers and books that broke when handled. Double Fooled is not a work of scholarship to be relied on. He's probably got you believing every reel of microfilm is a deteriorating compilation of mistakes. Nothing could be further from the truth.
- Walter Cybulski
On the philosophy of preservation:greints@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 07/19/03 03:12PM >>>
Newspapers could be preserved if one library in each area decided to save one newspaper. Here is Portland, one could save the "Oregonian" another the "Tribune" another "WIllamette Week" etc. Thus, no institution would take on too great a burden. The same sort of thing could be done with sound and video records- if some sort of voluntary organization was set up to coordinate things.
Nicholson Baker's "Double Fold" is an astounding look at what libraries threw away- but the simple principles of preservation he lays out could be applied to many fields.
Tony Greiner
> The problem is that in most cases newspaper articles are researched to traceeither trends or series of events...so that having every third (or whatever) day would be worse than useless in research! For example, suppose you were tracing the history of WWII, and your arbitrary selection left out June 6, 1944! Or stock market trends, and omitted "Black Thursday!" Or, worse yet, were culling an archive of the Chicago Tribune, and kept only a copy headlining "DEWEY WINS!"... Steven C. Barr
Then it wouldn't be a problem -- because SIGNIFICANT news stories have follow-up stories. Thus, June 7, 8, 9... would cover the events of June 6th; "Black Thursday" would continue to be commented on; and it would become clear from archival analyses that "Dewey Wins" was inaccurate. :)
Plus, you would have a cross-section of OTHER newspapers, where you **did** have data for those specific dates -- just from different cities.
That being said: A professor here did a study on lynchings in the U.S. South, and studied newspaper accounts to attempt a complete list of ALL events. During certain periods, lynchings (unfortunately) were such mundane events that they only received a two-paragraph write-up, with no follow-up.
It depends on the specific research question being asked -- in which case, those who would USE the archives -- historians, historical sociologists, and the like -- would have VERY specific instructions on what degree of archival retention would be in the "nice, but not necessary" realm, vs. "must-have."
--Travis
-- Tony Greiner/Mary Grant greints@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Tony Greiner/Mary Grant greints@xxxxxxxxxxxxx